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Ljubljana, Slovenia_ Clinical Centre

I had no idea that the cobblestone circle motif molded in the pavement or the long bands of pale orange concrete panels cladding the hospital were going to reoccur so many times. After a few hours of carefully observing the campus I come to a realization that Kristl’s Centre is the project that then later additions would model their design after. It’s amazing to see a new wing of the complex being raised with the exact same pale orange panel, the same long bands of floor to ceiling windows and the same terraced truncated ends, but almost 40 years after Kristl's original design was executed.

While one side of the block is made up of large cranes, temporary parking lots, dusty streets and all the activities that go along with a construction site, the opposite end houses Kristl’s design. A long concrete carpet moves from the street and pushes back to the main entrance. The procession leads past the openness of the front “yard”, towards a small compressed zone near the entrance and finally to the inside of the main lobby.

The ceiling is low, the colors are pale and the reflective ceiling plates hovering above expand throughout snaking in different directions. I refuse to walk any further, the eerie atmosphere lurking around me sends me back outside amongst the open thresholds amongst the crowds of bikes, people and trees.

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About this Blog

This research is driven to uncover and examine the idiosyncrasies of the architecture that grew out of social modernism in Yugoslavia in the 60s and 70s. Through my travels to the Ex-Yugoslav republics, I will investigate the ways in which these characteristics are informed, urbanistically and architecturally, by the historical, social and –above all- built domain of the preceding decades in Yugoslavia.